Our Oldest Daughter Turns 18!

 Crystal celebrates her 18th birthday!

She made this beautiful and delicious mint icecream cake with brownie crust on the bottom.

The only problem was that the frozen crust stuck fast to the glass pan! It took Jonathan a long time with a big sharp knife to get even the first piece loose. How many calories did he burn wrestling with that cake?

Oops, Crystal said, the recipe did say to line the pan with foil so you could lift the cake out. 

First time making the cake--we learned a lesson--and laughed a lot! 

Crystal had made most of the supper, too, with wondrous help from the rest of us, while the rest of us cleaned, scrubbed, did dishes, and so on. I let the older children choose and make their own cakes and sometimes all or part of their birthday meals. I know that is different than most people--but hey, our children are very happy with the arrangement--as long as they don't have to do school that day or the dishes afterward!!  It works well!

I know that is one of those "I-don't-want-to-see-you" moments for me--actually I was having to try to make sure Sam got an appropriate  picture and not something with our heads cut off or something. Plus I thought Crystal looked so lovely in the above picture despite how I looked, so I am putting this in just for her...

and then to be fair, one with my eyes actually open!!

The gift Crystal is holding is a sewing box with some new sewing notions inside--

for her hope chest.

After all, she's 18 now. 

Yikes. Help!

We just thought a couple pictures of Crystal with her parents and grandparents would be special on her 18th birthday. 

She'd invited our pastor and his wife and children for her party, because she is good friends with Cheryl. I am thankful for my children to have good friends of all ages. Some of the best friends are ones older and more experienced than we, who can be a godly example and mentor. 

Above, Grandpa, Cheryl, Marvin, and Jonathan are practicing a song Cheryl had asked them to play for the Christmas program at church. 

Crystal tying Charisse's shoes.

The girls, Cheryl, and Jonathan with his baritone horn, practicing another song for Christmas.

Mission Trip to Haiti

 

 Below the Mission Helps crew boards the Missionary Flight Int'l airplane in Ft. Pierce, FL. 

enroute to Haiti.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This is inside the plane. One side is used for stowing cargo. A lot of cargo is sent each trip to Haiti. This plane used to be an army plane! Now it carries everything from missionaries to cargo to horses and goats, they were told!

This is what the unfinished upstairs apartment for the Danny Flowers family looked like when Jonathan's crew of eight arrived. Here Dave Weaver and a couple other guys are laying out the cupboard plans for the kitchen. The other men got busy putting up drywall right away. 

This is the main living quarters on the mission compound. In the first story live the national pastor and his wife and four children. To the right in the wing live the eight orphan boys that the mission cares for, and further down the wing is where the Mission Helps crew stayed. There were no glass windows--it was open to the air--and to roosters, dogs, cats, voodoo off in the distance, and the sounds of prayer in the church at 5:00 in the morning!

 Here is the church where the early morning prayer meetings were held.

This is the school that the mission staffs with Christian teachers. 

At night, the men wore headlamps to work, and used the generator.

Jonathan's main job was to install conduit and to wire the apartment for electricity. He said the Flowers are not going to have it easy when they arrive in January to a still unfinished house. But the crew sure got a lot done while they were there. 

I believe the guys are working on sewer pipe here in the darkness.

More work. Three young guys traveled 8 hrs. from Port au Prince from GMC missionary Don Mobley's work. These young men were from Don's orphanage there. Don also loaned his truck for the purpose of this trip. Blessings on him and his people for their sacrificial support!

Building drawers for the cabinets. Hope to post more later. Jonathan hasn't even had time to show us all the pictures yet. It is just so good to have him home again. We missed him so much those ten days!

"Give Ye Them to Eat"

It's the wee hours of morning, and I've been unable to sleep. May as well blog a bit.

The day before Thanksgiving, our family and three young friends were involved as volunteers for the Springs Rescue Mission annual Thanksgiving banquet. Below is  a photo Jonathan took of the line waiting outside the door of the City Auditorium where the meal was served. Inside we were not supposed to take many pictures. About 794 people were served. Crystal, Sam, Carrie and Rose and their friends were placed as volunteers in the clothing/gift room, at the children's tables, and gathering up trash from the tables.

Jonathan and I were placed on the ministry team--visiting with people, offering them free Bibles, and if opportunity arose, offering to pray. About five boxes of Bibles were given out at this event, and that was very rewarding. We were able to speak to different ones, and one lady wanted me to pray for her family, which I did. I saw others of the ministry team praying with others as well. This was a challenge for Jonathan and me--totally "out of our box." We just want to be willing to do and be where the Lord wants us.

Because it is one thing to be part of a team traveling to far off lands, as both Jonathan and I have done before, where there is a sort of glamor about sharing the gospel, giving out Bibles, ministering to the poor. 

But it is quite another to step outside our own door, on our own streets, and go to someone nearby and share love, a Bible, a smile, a greeting, an offer to pray. 

You might be rejected.

And wouldn't that be just awful???

We had to deal with that there. Some did not want a Bible, and you don't even offer to pray.  

But then there are those who do want a Bible, who break down when you offer to pray, and shed tears as you put your hand on their shoulder and take their need to the Lord in prayer.

"Give ye them to eat," said Jesus. 

And out of our small loaves and few fish, out of our weakness and lack of experience and lack of courage, 

God allows His Word and love to be spread in quiet ways.

And then the next day was Thanksgiving.  We hurried to bake and get things ready to take to Grandma's, 

spent over an hour trying to unload a shed from the trailer,

and Jonathan helped Danny and Hannah each plant an amaryllis bulb. 

"Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.

But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

Lord, when we feel like we have been made into dirt,
like a seed that has died in the dirt,

                                           will You allow us to someday bring forth much fruit?

For some reason, the only pictures we got at Grandma's were some of the girls (our girls, cousin Emily, and friend Madi) trying to hide behind a pillow!! This was after dinner with Grandma and pa, Jonathan's brother Dave and Ruth's family, three children we'd brought whose folks were out of state, and ourselves. There were nineteen of us.   Jonathan took a picture of Ruth, Crystal and me gathered at the piano singing, but it disappeared somewhere. Jonathan and Dave worked together to put a new desk together for Grandpa who is rearranging some rooms so he can get around more easily. It was a joy to be with Dave and Ruth again. 

Bryan, two Delbridge boys, and Sam and Timmy played the Farming Game for a couple hours. The children played game after game outdoors. It was a pleasant Thanksgiving, with each trying to think of the other, and working at the job of kindness. And thank You, Lord, for the gift of family who love each other.

 Sam's 16th birthday. Hard to believe he can go get a driver's permit now.

Danny crowned Sam with a gift bag....

Jonathan couldn't resist getting a snap of the guys on the couch...

and all their FEET in the middle of the wrapping paper not quite picked up yet!

Doesn't the Bible say, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way."

It is our prayer that the steps of our son be always ordered by the Lord.
He has been a wonderful son, a good worker, and is trying to serve the Lord. We love him very much.

Meanwhile, in the other half of the room, Danny loves to play with his train set.
And yes, we do love this son, too!

A sunrise Jonathan captured

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

Lord, help us to remember in those nights when we cannot sleep,

that You are sovereign. You do all things well. You make no mistake.

And when we who are so human and faulted make mistakes,
Or when the mistakes of others affect us
and there is just a lot of brokenness and pain in the world around us,

may we remember You are the one who can turn mistakes around and bring good out of them.
You love to turn the darkest hour into the dawn of a new day!

You love to redeem situations!!

Your name is Redeemer! And Friend.

 You have such a way, Lord, of turning the burnt stumps of our lives into something beautiful,

like the raccoons that some gifted artist made out of this burnt stump from the Black Forest Fire.

turning our weakness into the strength of the eagle,

our fears into the boldness of a bear...

and giving us wisdom when all we have is the question, "Lord, what shall we do?"

You, Lord, are more than a wise old owl. 

You are our very source of wisdom, and our unfailing Refuge.

May we hide ourselves in you.

Perhaps I will be able to sleep now?

Thanksgiving Edibles

 The girls found a page of cute Thanksgiving edibles during Thanksgiving season. They made some of these Pilgrim Hat treats for youth night and for Thanksgiving Day at Grandma's, and also more for Sunday when we were with the Albertsons in Denver.

 Simple! You just take a Fudge Stripe cookie, turn it upside down, spread a peanut butter cup candy with a dab of frosting (we whipped peanut butter with powdered sugar), and squish the candy cup upside down on top of the hole of the cookie with the frosting squeezing out around the edges for the ribbon around the hat cap. Then attach a Chiclet gum to the icing. We couldn't find Chiclet gum at Walmart, so bought mini Starbursts and trimmed them down to the right square size.

Then below, we also made mini pumpkins out of peeled clementines with green twizzlers stuck into the middle for stems. If you can see, the girls also made edible acorns, by frosting a Nutter Butter together to a chocolate kiss, then adding a mini chocolate chip to the other end, gluing it on with frosting. Pretty realistic!

Below the girls are getting the tables ready for company for Sam's birthday.

After unwrapping all those peanut butter cups, Rose came up with a creative way to use the candy wrappers! 

This mambo egg could about win a blue ribbon somewhere!

The children measured it at about three inches long! And yes, it was a double yoker!

Love that chicken!

Jonathan priming the underside of his rusty trailer, getting it ready to paint. It never got painted before the day ended, but oh, well. 

There's always got to be a lazy bones around here!

Blessings--There are Always Blessings!

One of my favorite blogs is "A Holy Experience," by Ann Voskamp, author of One Thousand Gifts.

Her book and blog have greatly impacted my life--constantly encouraging women like me to give thanks in everything--even the hard things,

because giving thanks always precedes the blessing!

Mud-for moms-is a hard thing. 

But my children could always give thanks for mud!

Here we were wading in mud at Blue Mesa Reservoir last August...

getting lots of minerals soaked in!

What fun!

Did you know that plastering a bit of mud on a bee sting will take the pain away in minutes? It works!

Rose knows. A yellow jacket stung her lip one day on a picnic, and having nothing else,

I frantically scooped up a bit of black mud from under the picnic table. 

In ten minutes, she would hardly have known she got stung. 

Can we give thanks when our dreams melt like this vinyl fence we saw recently when we drove through the burn area in Black Forest?

In the middle of the ashes, 

in the middle of charred ambitions and hopes and wishes of our lives which may have ended up upside-down, twisted, burnt, destroyed--

the figure of a cross is carved.

And can we find words?

Can we find words when the cross is our only glory?

Like this little nest of baby robins under our pastor's back porch,

may we remember that though the love of everything we counted dear is challenged, we are safe in Your care!

When I found the photo below that Jonathan had taken at a work site, it reminded me of one of Ann Voskamp's recent posts about women who compare themselves with each other. She wrote:

"If your life looks like a mess-to them--they whip out a measuring stick and feel confident of their own worthiness.

If your life looks like a monumet--to them--they whip out a measuring stick

and start cutting you down for their own empowerment. "

" The world isn't  a forest of measuring sticks.

The world is a forest of burning bushes.

Everything isn't a marker to make you feel behind or ahead; everything is a flame to make you see God is here. 

That God is working through this person's life; that God is redeeming that person's life...that God is present here in this mess, that God is using even this. 

Walk through life with a measuring stick--and your eyes get so small you never see God. ,.,

Pick up a yardstick to measure your life against anyone else's

and you've just picked up a stick and beaten up your own soul. 

Measuring sticks always become weapons. ..

Know how Dad always tells the boys when they're building something, 'Measure twice, cut once.'

Well, when you're building a life? Measure yourself once against anyone else--and you cut twice:

them and you.

"And I want to cup every beautiful woman who feels less than or more than, every beautiful woman who feels judged, every beautiful woman who feels like a failure, who feels tired with all the measuring people up that’s tearing her down. To cup her beautiful face and murmur what I know from touching my own scars:

Comparison is a thug that robs your joy. But it’s even more than that — Comparison makes you a thug who beats down somebody – or your soul.

Scales always lie. They don’t make a scale that ever told the truth about value, about worth, about significance.

And the thing about meausuring sticks, girl? Measuring sticks try to rank some people as big and some people as small — but we aren’t sizes. We are souls.  There are no better people or worse people — there are only God-made souls. There is no point trying to size people up, no point trying to compare – because souls defy measuring.

You can’t measure souls.

And the moment you try to measure souls — you try to usurp God. And ain’t nobody needs reminding of who it was that tried to usurp God. Measuring people is always devilish work – and carrying around a measuring stick is a bit like carrying around a pitchfork.

I whisper it ...like a heart’s battle cry, like it could rally a generation of daughters and women and sisters:

Girls rival each other. Women revive each other. 
Girls empale each other. Women empower each other. 
Girls compare each other. Women champion each other."

I cut and pasted the above from Ann's blog, as it was worth sharing!

A batch of miller moths on our front porch wall.

When you consider how the Bible says our lives are like a moth--

is there really time to waste comparing ourselves, our accomplishments (or lack thereof), our gifts, our goals, to those of another, and get all bent out of shape because someone is besting us?

Are they really besting us?

Aren't they supposed to just be doing the will of God for them, too,

like we are supposed to be doing His will for us personally?

Though we may be at every disadvantage, blindfolded, the wrong size, the wrong shape, not much in the way of finances or health or talent,

we can still hold that bat--

and swing at that pinata!

We can mean to do what we are doing!

We can be on purpose about life. 

No, maybe it isn't just like the other person. Maybe it's different than everybody around us.

Maybe our bat is different, and our pinata is different, and even the treats in the pinata are different for us than for others.

But we can be on purpose and accomplish exactly what God wants to do with us each day!